For those of you that haven’t been following along, the Brawler’s Guild is a new feature being introduced to World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria in patch 5.1. This new part of the World of Warcraft has generated a lot of excitement--not to mention a few questions--so we’re going to try to provide a clearer picture of what we’re hoping to accomplish with the Brawler’s Guild in this thread.

First, a little bit about what it is, and what it isn’t:

What Brawler’s Guild Is

A fun, but small diversion that could grow in time

A venue for a realm’s community to come together

A unique way to earn some solo PvE bragging rights

A cool place to hang out

What Brawler’s Guild Isn’t

A means of solo progression

A major patch feature accessible to everyone (at first)

A way to earn lots of in-game rewards

Proving Grounds where you can develop class skills (that’s a different feature arriving later on)

So, to sum up, we’re trying to give the Brawler’s Guild a tight knit, underground kind of feel, and we expect the Guild on each realm to slowly grow to encompass more and more of the population over time. Because invites will be so limited, it’s likely that a lot of the players that join the Brawler’s Guild will have had some kind of interaction with one or more existing members before they ever step into the ring. Finally, a smaller population will help keep the queues low for quite a while – since a big part of the Brawler’s Guild is watching other players fight their own battles, right now instancing arenas or using phasing isn’t an attractive option.

About Those Invites
Invites to the Guild will (at least initially) only be available for purchase on the Black Market Auction House. We’ve taken this approach both to control queue times, and also because the Brawler’s Guild is meant to be kind of a small, underground thing, and a way for players on a realm to come together. At first, that will happen because invites will go out from one player to another based on who buys those initial Black Market invites. After reaching a certain rank in the Brawler’s Guild, each of the new members can eventually earn one new invitation of their own to pass out to someone else on the same realm, so the Brawler’s Guilds on each realm should get progressively larger and larger over time. We may also investigate alternate methods of acquiring invitations or making them more plentiful.

World First?
We’ve also decided that attaching a realm first style achievement to the Brawler’s Guild isn’t necessarily the right move. Rest assured that there will be other achievements to earn in the ring though.

We know you’ve got questions, so ask away, and we’ll try to clarify where things are hazy.

Heart of Fear Heroic Progression UpdateManaflask has been keeping track of progression in Heart of Fear, or lack thereof, on Imperial Vizier Zor'lok. Arctìca (EU-Chromaggus) decided to skip that boss and killed Blade Lord Ta'yak for World First 10 Man. Congratulations to them!

Heroic Imperial Vizier Zor'lok Hotfixes

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

The Heroic Zor'lok encounter is currently more difficult than intended. While we prefer to avoid changes to encounters in the midst of progression, we would like to fix a few quality of life issues and make some targeted balance changes that do not invalidate the efforts that guilds have put into learning the encounter so far. Later today a hotfix will make the following adjustments:

Zor'lok's Echoes will pause briefly before beginning to cast Song of the Empress.

Zor'lok's berserk timer has been increased slightly.

Zor'lok will no longer summon Echoes of Force and Verve during the final phase of the encounter.

OK, got it Blizzard, you want to look like a sucker, then go look like a sucker AGAIN, against the better judgment of your customers. Go ahead and make a MASSIVE CRAP, so later you have to assume it was crap, as EVERYONE SAID WAY BEFOREHAND, and bend over again.
Again...
Again...
Again...
Again...

I wish they would spend some time balancing the game instead of making borderline useless features like the brawlers guild. So many years, so littloe balance. And GC is ignorant as hell when it comes to balance.

Obviously. One team makes a smart decision, gets some kills, and now its cheap, aye? Order was never important, aka T11; moreover, last boss matters most. So still some time for the race to conclude. (so Shekzeer hc and Sha of Fear Hc still waiting)

Yea smart decision. /sarcasm

More like taking advantage of a bad mechanic blizzard has in the game. You should be required to do heroic kills in the same order as normal.

Everytime I see the word "balance", I only see: "WAHHH WAHHHH my class is not OP and does less damage than the others, omfg this is an outrage I can't deal with it at all! Wahh wahh mommmyyyyyyyy"

Read before you jump the gun and I don't think you understand the meaning of "balance".
Every xpac there will always a "FOTM" class that completely stand out compares to others.
Nobody is asking for that, I want a simple balance game where every class could just be on the same line or near each other. BALANCE.